Diary of 2nd Lieutenant Luman Harris Tenney: December 17, 1863

Boys with no rations last night and none this morning. Started details this afternoon. Issued meal in evening. Brigade marched three miles, little northwest of cross roads. Hdqrs. at Sawyer's, he away. Brigade ordered to the front. Cold night. Beef killed but not issued. Col. permitted me to remain. Expecting brigade back tomorrow night.

SOURCE: Frances Andrews Tenney, War Diary Of Luman Harris Tenney, p. 101

Diary of 1st Sergeant John L. Ransom: July 29, 1864

Alive and kicking Drank some soured water made from meal and water.

SOURCE: John L. Ransom, Andersonville Diary, p. 90

Diary of 2nd Lieutenant Luman Harris Tenney: December 8, 1863

Awoke considerably rested. Surprising how a tired man can sleep. Drew one day's ration of meal and two of H. Bread. Moved around Clinch Mountain to Blains Cross Roads. Boys killed a flock of sheep. Passed a division of the 9th Army Corps in camp. Stopped with boys at a house near road leading to Walker's Gap. Got coffee and then slept in good bed — secesh.

SOURCE: Frances Andrews Tenney, War Diary Of Luman Harris Tenney, p. 100

Diary of 2nd Lieutenant Luman Harris Tenney: December 2, 1863

Finished Burns yesterday. Pleased with him except that he tends too much to vulgarity. A good deal of wit. Firing all day in the direction of Walker's Ford. Infantry moved down. Cavalry obliged to fall back across the river. Commenced running mill at Big Springs. Fisher failed to return the meal. Teams sent back in evening. Put on my Regimentals.

SOURCE: Frances Andrews Tenney, War Diary Of Luman Harris Tenney, p. 99

Diary of 2nd Lieutenant Luman Harris Tenney: December 3, 1863

During the day was quite busy getting wheat, etc., together. Ordered to be ready to march this P. M. Got all ready but failed to move. Issued meal and flour till Tuesday. Wrote in the evening. Had some apples to eat. Boys played checkers. Two poor stoves.

SOURCE: Frances Andrews Tenney, War Diary Of Luman Harris Tenney, p. 99

Diary of 2nd Lieutenant Luman Harris Tenney: November 26, 1863

I shall be glad when the suspense shall end and we can move forward or back where we can find plenty to eat. Had some hogs driven up for 9th and 2nd. Bought 5 head of cattle. Drove up 7 from near Gap. Infantry Brigade, Wilcox's, came up, still half starved. Jackson so begged that we lent him 1,200 Ib. of meal. Letter from Ella Clark. Answered it. Did me good. Hid a dispatch on a messenger.

SOURCE: Frances Andrews Tenney, War Diary Of Luman Harris Tenney, p. 99

Diary of 2nd Lieutenant Luman Harris Tenney: November 28, 1863

Have an old store for the Commissary, storehouse below and office above. Cleaned up and put up a stove. Looked about to get mills. Hear no word from B. — borrowed meal. Aggravating. Lewis not successful. Dan fixed up a very good desk from an old P. O. box. Read some in Burns. Settled some accounts.

SOURCE: Frances Andrews Tenney, War Diary Of Luman Harris Tenney, p. 99

Diary of 2nd Lieutenant Luman Harris Tenney: November 24, 1863

Rob came before daylight and got flour for 2nd O. V. C. Hard up for rations seemingly. Another alarm and all saddled up before noon. Wagons moved to the rear and flour and meal collected. Letters from home and A. B. Moved to Tazewell. Wagons moved beyond. Couldn't find them. Slept at Hdqrs. after rambling round awhile. Cold night.

SOURCE: Frances Andrews Tenney, War Diary Of Luman Harris Tenney, p. 98

Diary of 2nd Lieutenant Luman Harris Tenney: November 25, 1863

In the morning rode out and found the wagons 1½ miles from town. Had Dan and Lewis go with Lt. Leavitt 14 miles for flour and meal. Got back about midnight, clear and cold. One of the Drivers came down. No move today. Spent the day at the wagons mostly. Read some, pitched a fly and took our ease. Numerous reports as to Burnside.

SOURCE: Frances Andrews Tenney, War Diary Of Luman Harris Tenney, p. 98-9

Diary of 1st Sergeant John L. Ransom: May 26, 1864

For the last three days I have had nearly enough to eat such as it is. My washing business gives me extra food. Have taken in a partner, and the firm now is Battese, Ransom & Co. Think of taking in more partners, making Battese president, appointing vice presidents, secretaries, &c. We charge a ration of bread for admittance. Sand makes a very good soap. If we could get hold of a razor and open a barber shop in connection, our fortunes would be made. We are prolonging Lewis' life by trading for luxuries to give him. Occasionally a little real meat soup, with a piece of onion in it, etc. Am saving up capital to buy a pair of shears I know of. Molasses given us to-day, from two to four spoonfuls apiece, which is indeed a treat. Anything sweet or sour, or in the vegetable line, is the making of us. We have taken to mixing a little meal with water, putting in a little molasses and setting it in the sun to sour. Great trouble in the lack of vessels in which to keep it, and then too, after getting a dish partly well soured, some poor prisoner will deliberately walk up and before we can see him drink it all up. Men are fairly crazy for such things.

SOURCE: John L. Ransom, Andersonville Diary, p. 61

Diary of John Beauchamp Jones: May 31, 1863

The commissioners, appointed for the purpose, have agreed upon the following schedule of prices for the State of Virginia, under the recent impressment act of Congress; and if a large amount of supplies be furnished at these prices — which are fifty, sometimes one hundred per cent, lower than the rates private individuals are paying — it will be good proof that all patriotism is not yet extinct:

“Wheat, white, per bushel of 60 pounds, $4 50; flour, superfine, per barrel of 196 pounds, $22.50; corn, white, per bushel of 56 pounds, $4; unshelled corn, white, per bushel of 56 pounds, $3.95; corn-meal, per bushel of 50 pounds, $4.20; rye, per bushel of 56 pounds, $3.20; cleaned oats, per bushel of 32 pounds, $2; wheatbran, per bushel of 17 pounds, 50 cents; shorts, per bushel of 22 pounds, 70 cents; brown stuff, per bushel of 28 pounds, 90 cents; ship stuff, per bushel of 37 pounds, $1.40; bacon, hoground, per pound, $1; salt pork, per pound, $1; lard, per pound, $1; horses, first class, artillery, etc., average price per head, $350; wool, per pound, $3; peas, per bushel of 60 pounds, $4; beans, per bushel of 69 pounds, $4; potatoes, Irish, per bushel of 69 pounds, $4; potatoes, sweet, per bushel of 69 pounds, $5; onions, per bushel of 60 pounds, $5; dried peaches, peeled, per bushel of 38 pounds, $8; dried peaches, unpeeled, per bushel of 38 pounds, $4.50; dried apples, peeled, per bushel of 28 pounds, $3.”

SOURCE: John Beauchamp Jones, A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital, Volume 1, p. 337

Diary of 1st Sergeant John L. Ransom: May 19, 1864

Nearly twenty thousand men confined here now. New ones coming every day. Rations very small and very poor. The meal that the bread is made out of is ground, seemingly, cob and all, and it scourges the men fearfully. Things getting continually worse. Hundreds of cases of dropsy. Men puff out of human shape and are perfectly horrible to look at. Philo Lewis died today. Could not have weighed at the time of his death more than ninety pounds, and was originally a large man, weighing not less than one hundred and seventy. Jack Walker, of the 9th Mich. Cavalry, has received the appointment to assist in carrying out the dead, for which service he receives an extra ration of corn bread.

SOURCE: John L. Ransom, Andersonville Diary, p. 59

1st Lieutenant Charles Wright Wills: March 26, 1862

Camp near Point Pleasant, Mo., March 26, 1862.

It is, to-day, very much warmer. I'm altogether too hot to be comfortable in my shirt sleeves. Don't know what is to become of us in July if it is so hot in proportion. I shake in my boots at the thought of the mosquitoes, flies, etc., we will have to endure. Vegetation is giving the surroundings a greenish appearance already, and have seen a peach tree in nearly full bloom. Wheat is about three or four inches above ground. Makes a very respectable sod. I think there are more Union people here than in any part of Missouri that I have been in, and fewer widows. Men are nearly all at home and putting in their crops as coolly as though there was no war. Some of our soldiers impose on the natives pretty badly. You don't know how thankful you ought to be that you don't live in the invaded country. Wherever there is an army, for 10 or 15 miles around it there will be hundreds of stragglers. Some out of curiosity, some to see the natives and talk with them, but the majority to pick up What they can to eat. There is not a farm house within ten miles of camp, notwithstanding the positive orders against straggling, that has not, at least, 50 soldier visitors a day, and they are the poorest soldiers and the meanest men that do all the straggling, or nearly all. They will go into a house and beg what they can and then steal what is left. Rough, dirty, coarse brutes, if they were all shot, our army would be better off. Most of these fellows are bullies at home, and that class makes plunderers in war. I've seen enough of war to know that it isn't the brawling, fighting man at home that stands the bullet whistle the best. A favorite game of these chaps, where they are not utterly depraved (there are a good many of the latter), is for a couple of them to go in the house and make themselves as interesting as possible while the others clean out the smokehouse, chicken yard, and the premises generally. The greatest objection and the only one I have to being in the army, is the idea of being associated, in the minds of the people of this country, as well as the home folks, with such brutes. But I tell you, that I have always acted the gentleman to the best of my ability since I entered the army, and I don’t believe I’m a whit worse than I was at home. I haven't drank one-tenth as much liquor as I did in the same length of time at home, and you know how much that was, and that I hate the stuff too much to ever taste it unless forced upon me. The last I touched was with poor George Shinn just before the 17th left the cape. We drank to “Our next shake hands, may it be at the end of the war, at home and before three months.” George was a No. 1 soldier. We bays all think everything of him. Tell him we all sympathize with him and wish him a speedy recovery, and that his services may not be needed any more. Seems to me I write you nearly every day, but haven't had a letter from home for two or three weeks. Our mail is very irregular though, and I can excuse, but I would like you to get all of mine and save them, for I would like to look these over myself when I get home, as I keep no diary. The day is so warm that our boys are all out bathing in a little swamp lake near here. The Lord knows some of them need it. Cleanliness is undoubtedly the best preventive of disease in the army. Hardly any of the boys that are cleanly suffer from disease. The colonel and Sidney went to Cairo yesterday. The colonel with dispatches from General Pope, I believe, and Sid. just because he could. We buried our two boys yesterday morning that were killed at Cane Bridge, and I (never felt sadder in my life. I’m sure that knowing I would be killed to-morrow wouldn’t hurt me half as much. These poor fellows have suffered all the hardships and trials of the private soldier's life, and are now put under the ground in the dark-swamp, without a friend here, save their comrades, and probably after the army leaves, a friendly eye will never see their graves. I sent a package of letters back to a young lady that one of them was engaged to. Our men have been living on mush and the other messes, makeable from cornmeal for a week, without coffee or any thing else. Couldn't get provisions through from Cairo near fast enough, and Pope gobbled up everything that did come for the troops at Madrid. Chet. Caswell, a Canton boy, is here now and cooking for our mess, I can live on fried mush as long as the next man. The frogs, bugs, blackbirds and sich like, keep up a perfect bedlam around us the whole time.

SOURCE: Charles Wright Wills, Army Life of an Illinois Soldier, p. 73-5

Diary of 1st Sergeant John L. Ransom: May 7, 1864

A squad of Yankees taken outside to-day on parole of honor, for the purpose of baking meal into bread George Hendryx is one of the number, and he will have enough to eat after this, which I am glad of. I could have gotten outside if I so chose, but curious to write down I don't want to go. George says he will try and send in something for us to eat, and I know he will, for a truer hearted fellow never lived.

SOURCE: John L. Ransom, Andersonville Diary, p. 55

1st Lieutenant Charles Wright Wills: January 20, 1862

Bird's Point, Mo., January 20, 1862.

It goes confounded good once more to stand on boards, and be able to sit down without wet coming through a fellow's pants. If I write and tell you where we've been, you won't read it, and if I don't write all about it you'll scold, so of the two I'll choose the first and tell you all I know. We got on the steamer “Aleck Scott” last Tuesday morning with five days' rations and started down the river through very heavy floating ice. ’Twas a very cold day and full three inches of snow lay on the ground. We landed at Fort Jefferson and camped for the night. By some mismanagement our tents and equipage failed to come and we had to cook the bacon we had in our haversacks on sticks over the fire, for supper, and sleep out on the snow, without tents to protect us from the wind. That was a sweet old night! Next day we shouldered our knapsacks, blankets all wet by a rain from 2 to 5 in the morning, and awful heavy, and tramped about ten miles in a southeast direction, through Blanville, Ballard County; and camped on Mayville Creek. Again we lay on the snow and frozen ground with feather beds of brush, and at 9 next morning started on the road to Columbus. We went out to Little Meadows which is about eight or nine miles from Columbus, and halted. Taylor's battery was with us and they now unlimbered and planted their guns to cover all of the four or five roads which lead from here to the river. McClernand's brigade of six or seven regiments, and Cook's of two regiments, were in advance of us with 1,000 cavalry, and I think that we acted here as a reserve, for them to fall back on if repulsed in a fight. We waited here two hours and then formed again and returned to our camp of the previous night. It had turned warm by this time and the slush was six inches deep on our backward march. Slept in the mud that night and remained in camp all next day, during which it rained every hour. Friday night it rained in a small way all the time, and in the morning, (if you remember when you have too many clothes in a tub of water how the water will "slosh" when you press the clothes) you'll understand my “condish.” I had my blanket spread on some stiff brush, and Mr. Aqua surrounded brush, and every time Wills turned, brush would bend and water would slosh and blanket would leak and upshot was, Wills was damb'd wet, but too spunky to get up until he'd had his nap. Saturday we got out of “provish,” and at 1 p. m. we struck tents, and thought we were off for home sure. But we only marched back a few miles and camped at Elliott's Mills. Here, by orders from the colonel, we killed two hogs for the company, and he took what cornmeal we wanted from the mill, and we supped sumptuously. Here although the mud was deep we slept finely. There was a cypress swamp near and the bark can be torn into the finest shavings. That was just as good as we wanted. Sunday we started for the river and of all the marches, that beats! We waded through at least eight streams from one to two feet deep and five to ten yards wide. I had shoes, and after wading the first stream, I cut all the front upper off to let the water out handier. I made it gay and festive after that. Object of expedish, don't know, don't care, only know that it did me good. I feel 100 per cent better than I did when I started. Col. Pitt Kellogg has brought me my commission as 1st lieutenant in his regiment, and I am adjutant in the 3d batallion, Major Rawalts. I go to Cape Girardeau the last of this week.

SOURCE: Charles Wright Wills, Army Life of an Illinois Soldier, p. 56-7

Diary of 1st Sergeant John L. Ransom: April 10, 1864

Getting warmer and warmer. Can see the trees swaying back and forth on the outside, but inside not a breath of fresh air. Our wood is all gone, and we are now digging up stumps and roots for fuel to cook with. Some of the first prisoners here have passable huts made of logs, sticks, pieces of blankets, &c. Room about all taken up in here now. Rations not so large. Talk that they intend to make the meal into bread before sending it inside, which will be an improvement. Rations have settled down to less than a pint of meal per day, with occasionally a few peas, or an apology for a piece of bacon, for each man. Should judge that they have hounds on the outside to catch run-aways, from the noise. Wirtz don't come in as much as formerly. The men make it uncomfortable for him As Jimmy Devers says, “He is a terror.” I have omitted to mention Jimmy's name of late, although he is with us all the time — not in our mess, but close by. He has an old pack of cards with which we play to pass away the time. Many of the men have testaments, and “house-wives” which they have brought with them from home, and it is pitiful to see them look at these things while thinking of their loved ones at home.

SOURCE: John L. Ransom, Andersonville Diary, p. 49-50

Diary of 1st Sergeant John L. Ransom: March 27, 1864

We have issued to us once each day about a pint of beans, or more properly peas, (full of bugs), and three-quarters of a pint of meal, and nearly every day a piece of bacon the size of your two fingers, probably about three or four ounces. This is very good rations taken in comparison to what I have received before the pine which we use in cooking is pitch pine, and a black smoke arises from it; consequently we are black as negroes. Prison gradually filling from day to day, and situation rather more unhealthy. Occasionally a squad comes in who have been lately captured, and they tell of our battles, sometimes victorious and sometimes otherwise. Sometimes we are hopeful and sometimes the reverse. Take all the exercise we can, drink no water, and try to get along. It is a sad sight to see the men die so fast. New prisoners die the quickest and are buried in the near vicinity, we are told in trenches without coffins. Sometimes we have visitors of citizens and women who come to look at us. There is sympathy in some of their faces and in some a lack of it. A dead line composed of slats of boards runs around on the inside of the wall, about twelve or fourteen feet from the wall, and we are not allowed to go near it on pain of being shot by the guard.

SOURCE: John L. Ransom, Andersonville Diary, p. 44

Diary of 1st Sergeant John L. Ransom: March 15, 1864

At about midnight I could stand up no longer, and lay down in the mud and water. Could hardly get up. Shall get food this morning, and after eating shall feel better. There is a good deal to write about here, but I must postpone it until some future time, for I can hardly hold a pencil now. Later: Have drawn some rations which consisted of nearly a quart of corn meal, half a pound of beef, and some salt. This is splendid. I have just partaken of a delicious repast and feel like a different person. Dr. Lewis is discouraged and thinks he cannot live long in such a place as this.

SOURCE: John L. Ransom, Andersonville Diary, p. 41

Diary of John Beauchamp Jones: March 31, 1863

Another stride of the grim specter, and cornmeal is selling for $17 per bushel. Coal at $20.50 per ton, and wood at $30 per cord. And at these prices one has to wait several days to get either. Common tallow candles are selling at $4 per pound. I see that some furnished houses are now advertised for rent; and, I hope that all the population that can get away, and subsist elsewhere, will leave the city.

The lower house of Congress has passed a most enormous tax bill, which I apprehend cannot be enforced, if it becomes a law. It will close half the shops — but that may be beneficial, as thousands have rushed into trade and become extortioners.

I see some batteries of light artillery going toward Petersburg. This is to be used against the enemy when he advances in that direction from Suffolk. No doubt another attempt will be made to capture Richmond. But Lee knows the programme, I doubt not.

SOURCE: John Beauchamp Jones, A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital, Volume 1, p. 283

Diary of John Beauchamp Jones: March 22, 1863

It was thawing all night, and there is a heavy fog this morning. The snow will disappear in a few days.

A very large number of slaves, said to be nearly 40,000, have been collected by the enemy on the Peninsula and at adjacent points, for the purpose, it is supposed, of co-operating with Hooker's army in the next attempt to capture Richmond.

The snow has laid an embargo on the usual slight supplies brought to market, and all who had made no provision for such a contingency are subsisting on very short-commons. Corn-meal is selling at from $6 to $8 per bushel. Chickens $5 each. Turkeys $20. Turnip greens $8 per bushel. Bad bacon $1.50 per pound. Bread 20 cts. per loaf. Flour $38 per barrel,—and other things in proportion. There are some pale faces seen in the streets from deficiency of food; but no beggars, no complaints. We are all in rags, especially our underclothes. This for liberty!

The Northern journals say we have negro regiments on the Rappahannock and in the West. This is utterly untrue. We have no armed slaves to fight for us, nor do we fear a servile insurrection. We are at no loss, however, to interpret the meaning of such demoniac misrepresentations. It is to be seen of what value the negro regiments employed against us will be to the invader.

SOURCE: John Beauchamp Jones, A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital, Volume 1, p. 278